By Philip Pullella
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – A long-awaited Vatican report into disgraced ex-U.S. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick is expected to be released this month to coincide with an annual meeting of American bishops, Vatican sources said on Thursday.
McCarrick was expelled from the Roman Catholic priesthood last year after a Vatican investigation found him guilty of sexual crimes against minors and adults and abuse of power.
Pope Francis ordered a thorough study of all documents in Holy See offices concerning McCarrick in 2018. The four U.S. dioceses where he served – New York, Metuchen, Newark, and Washington, D.C. – carried out separate investigations to feed into the Vatican report.
U.S. Catholic bishops are due to hold their annual meeting Nov. 15-19. It will be held virtually this year because of the coronavirus.
The sources said the report would be released by the Vatican before the bishops’ meeting starts.
There is great anticipation for the report because it may show how McCarrick managed to rise through the ranks even though his history of sexual misconduct with adult male seminarians was an open secret.
The 90-year-old McCarrick, once a power-broker as Archbishop of Washington, D.C. from 2001 to 2006, is the highest-profile Church figure to have been dismissed from the priesthood in modern times.
(Reporting By Philip Pullella; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
